Technical Field
The present embodiments concern a method for flushing a toilet of a vehicle, especially a toilet of a recreational vehicle, such as for motor homes, buses, but also for watercraft such as boats or yachts, with a toilet bowl, a conduit piece for drainage of waste water into a waste-holding tank, and a control unit for actuating a flushing with a control program. Moreover, the present embodiments concern a toilet system with a toilet bowl with a closable conduit piece and at least one control unit as well as a vehicle with such a toilet system and a computer program product to carry out the steps of the method of the embodiments.
Description of Related Art
Known toilets which find use in recreational vehicles consist of an upper part and a lower part. The upper part comprises a seat and a toilet bowl, while the waste-holding tank is located in the lower part and can be connected to the toilet bowl of the upper part. In particular, cassette toilets are known from the prior art for use in recreational vehicles, having a waste-holding tank which is easily removable from the toilet and thus simple to replace. Such toilets are known from EP 2 484 560 A1 and EP 2 572 940 A1. The waste-holding tank here is configured as a cassette and serves as a collecting tank for the waste water. The waste-holding tank can accept both liquids and solids. In the known cassette toilets, the toilet bowl can be permanently installed in a vehicle via a supporting part. The waste-holding tank is located under the toilet bowl in a cassette shaft. The cassette shaft is generally accessible from the outside via a flap in the outer wall of the vehicle. In this way, the waste-holding tank can be easily inserted into or pulled out from the cassette shaft.
The toilets known from the prior art work satisfactorily when the waste-holding tank is shoved into the cassette shaft. However, a major drawback occurs when the waste-holding tank is removed from the cassette shaft, for example, for emptying, cleaning, or servicing. If the toilet is used in this case, for example in an emergency situation or without knowledge or attention to the situation, the excrement or liquids drop through the outlet of the toilet bowl and the conduit piece into the cassette shaft or into the vehicle. This is highly undesirable and unhygienic and the resulting contamination makes necessary an expensive cleaning, at least of the cassette shaft. The consequences are all the more disastrous in such a situation if furthermore the waste-holding tank is inadvertently put back into the contaminated cassette shaft. Moreover, if liquid gets into hard to reach areas of the vehicle, this can become contaminated beyond repair or even damaged.
Moreover, there are a number of proposals for toilet flushing systems that can trigger a standard flushing by means of a control unit. In a so-called standard flushing, the flushing is generally triggered manually by a user via a suitable activating device and water of flushing liquid is introduced into the toilet bowl for the flushing. The contaminated flushing liquid is then taken away via the drain into the waste-holding tank.
The use of such toilet flushing systems is possible up to the maximum volume capacity of the waste-holding tank. Upon reaching the maximum volume capacity of the waste-holding tank, the tank can overflow in a further flushing operation, and the waste water will collect in the region above the inlet of the waste-holding tank between toilet bowl and waste-holding tank and then run into the cassette shaft or the inside of the vehicle. The result, when pulling out the waste-holding tank, is that the excess waste water will get into the cassette shaft or the vehicle in an uncontrolled manner. Such contamination must be prevented, for the above mentioned reasons.
Therefore, the problem of the inventive embodiments is to prevent the uncontrolled draining of waste water, especially flushing liquid or solids, into the empty cassette shaft or the vehicle.
Moreover, the problem is to propose a toilet system with a toilet flushing that also enables a hygienic use of the toilet, at least for emergencies, even when the waste-holding tank is removed from the cassette shaft, and which can find use in a vehicle of the above-described kind.
The information included in this Background section of the specification, including any references cited herein and any description or discussion thereof, is included for technical reference purposes only and is not to be regarded subject matter by which the scope of the instant embodiments are to be bound.